


Post-Gauda Parent Trap

by Sally M (sallymn)



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen, Post Gauda Prime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-12
Updated: 2009-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-04 09:18:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallymn/pseuds/Sally%20M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vila is bringing some... <em>unexpected</em> rebel wannabes to the new base to meet Avon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Post-Gauda Parent Trap

**Post-Gauda Parent Trap**

****

"If this is a joke, Vila..."

****

Avon's voice was harsher than he recalled - even harsher than it had been in those last dreadful months before what was now known as Gauda Fiasco, but Vila ignored that with the ease of long practice, the hearing loss that had proven surprisingly useful, and the confidence born of the fact that he knew Avon wouldn't kill him.

****

Well, not without Blake's permission. And if Blake's patience and forgiveness extended to Avon - _almost_ \- shooting him (Avon refused to admit that he had been aiming at Blake, and that only an involuntary jerk of the hand had saved him and killed the spy instead. Blake simply shrugged and ensured projectile weapons were being kept away from Avon) well, surely everyone else was entited to some as well, right?

****

Of course right.

****

He kept his eye on the landscape below, searching for the entrance to the rebuilt Xenon base, better and bigger and filled with considerably more people - well, rebels, not all of them _people_ \- these days.

****

Of course right, he thought again. And anyway, it wasn't his fault. Just because he was a sucker for a pretty face... a pretty and very well-known face. Talli smiled at him, that gentle, haunting, oh-so-familiar smile, and glanced over into the back seat of their small flyer.

****

Vila swallowed - he'd missed that smile, that look, that _face_, so much - and spoke up. "Not a joke, Avon, I swear it. The others are still on Kahhn, finishing the delivery of supplies to the Aurinar, but Franton and - and Talli," who looked so much like her clone-sisters it hurt, "that's Cally's sis-"

****

"I guessed." The harshness was splintering. "Are you planning on bringing - _them_ here?"

****

Talli's smile faltered at the stark rejection in the voice.

****

Vila took a deep breath. "Yes. Yes I am. She won't leave the little ones, and Franton says the Auronar can't look after them any more." He paused, but there was no answer. "They shouldn't have done it in the first place, I know that and you know that. But they did. And now that everyone says the Commissioner's dead -" not that that made it true, "- they think it's our turn."

****

"They. Had. No. _Right_!" Avon spoke faintly, icily, and Talli's smile faded completely as she glanced anxiously at the back seat.

****

"It was that or let the embryos die, so Franton says." Vila didn't know if that was true, either, but he hadn't been about to argue with Franton. "And if the Federation - even if the Witch herself, if she's still alive - knew about them..."

****

"Which they must never do," Talli said gently, both in voice and thoughts. Vila had a horrible feeling that she had done the same to Avon which, given how he had felt about Cally, was _not_ a good idea.

****

He should have contacted Blake directly. He _should_ have, he knew it, Blake would never, ever punish innocents for what was never their doing. But Blake was unavailable, and they - Vila, Talli and the innocents - were coming, and they didn't have time.

****

There was a silence, as cold as deep space. Talli and the other Auronar was asking a lot of them, he knew, and even if Avon was not his favourite teammate these days - was actually somewhere way behind Zuleiki the Zealot and his group of alien zomboids, to be honest - he had a feeling that facing a telepath with Cally's face and voice, along with their small, frighteningly vulnerable and appallingly parented charges, was more than the man would be able to take.

****

But after all, Avon didn't have to have anything to do with them. It wasn't as they knew he was -

****

Then a small, high voice piped up. "Is that our new Daddy?"

****

The silence froze even further, and Vila groaned to himself. He was hoping they'd have slept...

****

"We were told," the second voice prattled, "that we don't have a Mommy. But no one said we can't have a Daddy."

****

"But you're Unca Vila -" Number Three.

****

"And we met Unca Delgrant -" and Number Four.

****

"And Talli said that Bwake was ev'ryone's Bewuved... B'luved Leader," Five stumbled, and corrected herself proudly. Vila closed his eyes and hoped, prayed, that no one was listening who'd pass that gem onto Blake.

****

Oh yes, he remembered, someone was. But that someone seemed to be in shock, if the unholy silence on the intercom was anything to go by.

****

"But Nanna Franton did say that _someone_ would be our Daddy," that might have been Six - or Two, they all sounded alike, "he'd do it for Auntie Ca-"

****

"Avon - they're only babies," Vila rushed in, knowing how _that_ little ploy of Franton's would be received. Personally, he thought Franton's grasp of human - or Avonic - psychology left just about everything to be desired if she thought the recommended parental figure could be moulded from their damaged and savage computer expert. Maybe she thought it would be good for him.

****

Or maybe she was just evil.

****

Blake would have been a better choice. Or Deva. Or even Vila himself.

****

Or Zuleiki the Zealot.

****

"They are -"

****

"Cute, actually," he interrupted hastily over the acid hiss that he knew he did _not_ want the babies to hear. "They've been really, really good all the way here, especially when you think they're only five years old."

****

"Five? It has not been that long -"

****

"Auronar technology," Talli said calmly. "Avon, there is nothing of the... donor but the physical resemblance, and at this age, even that is minimal."

****

Vila, glancing back at the identical small faces, smooth dark hair and big, bright, green-gold eyes, would have disputed that... if he'd been stupid enough to. It was lucky that the donor, the ex-President whose name he wouldn't even breathe in their presence, had never ever found out about the seven, non-telepathic survivors of her insane cloning schemes of years ago. And with luck - and the Rebel Federation's help - she never would.

****

He knew how Avon felt (well, not about the Daddy bit, thank all the lords of providence; Franton _was_ evil). He'd had the same harsh, visceral stab of loathing when they'd been presented with the children. But they _were_ innocent children... and it had only taken a few days to realise that there was nothing of that vicious heritage in them.

****

"I think he sounds scarwwy," Seven said softly, and glancing back, Vila saw little hands - fourteen of them - creeping out and clasping together. "He's not our new daddy, is he?"

****

Servalan's seven. Who'd have thought it?

****

"Avon, you're scaring them." So what else is new, he thought. "We're landing in an hour, we can discuss it then."

****

"We will discuss nothing, Vila." Avon drew a harsh, almost rattling breath - he'd never recovered fully from his own injuries from Gauda Fiasco - and then went on with a creditable stab at his usual cold normality. "_You_ can discuss it with Blake and Deva, and I suggest that you keep the details from anyone but Blake and Deva."

****

Vila blinked. True, no child deserved being known as Servalan's, but that would hardly occur to their herculanium-hearted Avon.

****

"Whoever - whatever - they are, they don't deserve it," Avon spoke more softly.

****

Vila blinked again.

****

"But you and your guest -" and the harshness was back, "- can deal with the - parenting question. Franton must have been insane..."

****

"You heard them, I'm Unc-"

****

"Deal. With. It." The intercom clicked off, as harshly as if Avon had slammed a hand on it.

****

He probably had, Vila thought sourly, and threw a bright, determined grin at the seven little girls in the back seat. Reassured, they beamed back. They might be the Witch's genetic offspring, he thought, but they were rather... cute.

****

And Avon was not going to deal well with cute.

****

Talli glanced at him sideways, and smiled. "It will be all right, Vila," she said serenely. "I have a feeling."

****

Oh god... _that_ was familiar. And as totally lacking in comfort as when Cally had said it years ago.

****

The silo doors slid open, welcoming or threatening, and he reminded himself that Avon wouldn't kill him unless Blake let him - and that Blake, the seven little girls' 'B'luved Leader' wouldn't let him - he fleetingly wondered...

****

Deva? Tarrant? Oh hell, he thought wildly, what sort of a Daddy would... _Orac_ make?

**

  
**\- the end -**   


**

**Author's Note:**

> Done for a challenge, from the song title 'Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat' :)


End file.
